


The Mirror

by Gal_In_The_Public_Eye (Enjolras_The_Survivor)



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 06:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18585643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enjolras_The_Survivor/pseuds/Gal_In_The_Public_Eye
Summary: NB: I DID NOT WRITE THIS, MY FRIEND DID. Thanks, Reuben!This was an English Homework assignment.





	The Mirror

A stream of lunar light crept through a blanket of cloud to vaguely illuminate the street, bathing the scanty dog-befouled grass in a faint glow. I turned up West Avenue, and left the imperious, painted, art-nouveau style streetlights for the complete blackness of the tow-path beyond. A yellow neon bar light hung limply from a shop and beaconed a little light into the night with an audible electrical buzz.  
Mist flowed beneath the vaulted ceiling of weeping willow into the void of what I supposed was the canal. I chuckled cynically, remembering the blanket of dry ice fumes on the set of every cheap horror film I had watched. This wasn’t the soft haze of country fields on a damp morning. It was city fog – laden with the carbon particulates that drew it downwards in an almost intangible stream towards the lowest point it could find. I fastened my coat with a shiver and continued along the tow path through that comical but menacing smog.  
The canal had been built during the 19th century and was in fact a branch from the main canal that had provided a crucial trading link to the industrial town. This branch had led directly to some long-ago-demolished prison building which was probably now a bank, a discount store or perhaps a charity shop. At the time I lived near it, it was disused. Boaters never explored this dead-end stretch of water and it lay stagnantly, accumulating discarded shopping trollies and whatever debris anyone fed it. Locals reputed that there was more in its immeasurable murky depths. I wasn’t one for superstition and hadn’t enquired further.  
That night I happened to glance towards the scummy water as it glistened entirely unromantically in the moonlight. What I saw surprised me: a faint light seemed to emanate from the eutrophic sludge through the algae clad surface. I edged closer with a hint of apprehension, but my gaze remained transfixed on what now formed small concentrated orbs of light. They appeared to be situated several feet below the surface and they appeared to move a little. As I stared my eyes involuntarily unfocussed, then focussed again, and then repeated this. Now the surface of the water itself danced and split into multi-faceted forms, still with the tenuous illumination from seemingly deep below. My vision- or perhaps my perception- lost clarity and spun uncontrollably. Nausea overcame me but my consciousness somehow felt as though it reached over the crumbling edge of the water’s bank and into the light. Connection to my body ceased and I saw – didn’t feel- it lurch forward into the nettle thicket that lined the bank.  
I tripped. I fell. I plunged forward into empty space and an eternity filled the second during which gravity pulled me towards the canal. Your life supposedly flashes before your eyes during these moments. For me it didn’t. My mind was singularly filled with the dry chuckle I had emitted earlier at the sight of the mist. It replayed in synchrony with waves of nausea and…  
I hit the water. It enveloped my lower half in cold sludge and my sense of smell in the acrid stench of decayed vegetation. I clawed desperately for the bank, but my right foot was pulled downwards. Something resembling a claw dug into my heel and ensnared my shoe. I flailed in panic, now filled with a different variety of mental disarray. An orange security light flashed distantly – it was just past the line of bushes parallel to the tow-path but to me the gap was immense. The void between civilisation and monstrosity. Between life and death.  
I barely felt my numb hand land on a hard surface. It was an old wooden pile driven into the bank to stabilise it. Muscle cramps set into my arm, and my hand contracted around the damp ancient wood. Progressively my whole body tensed, scrunching me into a foetal position as icy chill crept from my extremities towards my core. My neck allowing a little movement, I scanned the waterway with wide eyes for those deadly lights. There was no sign of them.  
Here I was, frozen to the base of the bank, clutching to the pole with hands which saved me from drowning, yet suspended me hypothermically in the water. It was April – waterways shouldn’t even be that cold. I pondered an untimely demise in this stinking crevice where the refuse of humanity dwelt. I was uniquely trapped by traitor that was my biology.  
It must have been then when I felt adrenaline strike, though now I like to imagine it was that small grain of unwavering hope that is buried variably deep in every human, yearning to escape. Inch by inch I clawed up the earthen wall I was below. Panic had disappeared entirely, and it was replaced by a kind of instinctive single-mindedness. To survive.  
My hand reached vegetation. Cold tendons groaned and every muscle cramped up yet again as I lurched violently; this time I lurched onto the bank. I landed on the nettle patch in agony. It wasn’t from the nettles – I didn’t notice them. Consciousness faded and I lapsed into an almost comatose state.  
I awoke with a start on the nettles and peered around. Initial confusion became terrifyingly vivid memory. My clothes were still damp, yet I could feel that paralysing chill seeping from my fingertips. It was as though It was returning to the canal like that hypnotic flowing mist. Sweat now permeated my skin and rolled down my forehead in salty, itching beads. Stiff necked, I turned to face the water. It was still dark but as I looked, a glow seemed to again emanate, in those swirling sunken orbs. I blinked away tears and wiped my eyes to see clearer, and the dark cold feeling began to creep back into my limbs. In defiance, I blinked furiously in denial. I was angry, and I wanted my body back. I threw my head up towards the heavens in subconscious prayer to whatever divine archetype might dwell there. I blinked again. Blurriness left my vision and I saw a string of lights on a wire on an industrial building somewhat away and above me. They were partly obscured behind – almost beneath- foliage and rocked slightly in the faint breeze. A hypnotic circular motion.  
I wrenched my vision back to the water and saw the lights within. They were just reflections. Harmless reflections. Harmless reflections on the ignoble mirror of the black waterway.  
I rose and continued along the towpath as I did every night on the way home from work. I reached the cramped flat and tried to resume normality. Wash clothes. Microwave ready meal. Eat it. Drink something slightly less innocuous than water. Sleep. Hopefully wake up having forgotten the sorry affair.  
I never did forget the memories made that night. In hindsight it seems almost reminiscent of the homeostatic fluctuations between elements of the human psyche. Perhaps that is just fanciful thinking on my part? Perhaps I fabricated some pretentious allegorical fantasy to compensate for the mundanities of city life? Does it even matter? – for clearly reality is subjective.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this - again, I'M NOT THE AUTHOR - my friend Reuben is.  
> He also found these songs that capture the atmosphere.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kONQ8cp3Tlc   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3LGFY1i0o


End file.
